In an operating lever of the pre-cited type known from DE-GM 84 13 255, the sliding shoe arranged in the valve-proximate region between the lever and the gas exchange valve assures that wear in the region of force transmission between the valve operating lever and the valve stem caused by the surface contact between these parts is reduced to a minimum.
A drawback of this lever is that it is a cast structure and is therefore expensive to manufacture and has a large mass. A further drawback is that the fixing of the sliding shoe in the lever is also very complicated. This is effected by a retaining pin which is anchored in the lever and projects into the sliding shoe.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,535,641 discloses a chiplessly shaped finger lever comprising a bottom wall which connects two side walls to each other so that, seen in cross-section, an upwardly open U-shaped lever is formed. However, this lever does not comprise a downwardly open recess and a sliding shoe in the valve-proximate region.